Letters: Friedman, HISD, Armstrong

Copyright 2012: Houston Chronicle

Updated 8:04 pm, Friday, October 12, 2012

Friedman is believable

Regarding "What Romney didn't say about the Middle East" (Page B7, Wednesday), from what I have learned in the past from reading Thomas Friedman is that he does not sit still much. He travels a lot to get his perspectives on many different world situations. In other words, he does not sit at his desk and waste time with 24-hour news shows. China, South America, the lower Pacific - Friedman moves around and gets his viewpoints face to face.

When he says in so many words that Romney has no clue about the Middle East, I think you can believe that Friedman has given this subject considerable thought.

Regarding "No paid holidays" (Page B8, Thursday), it isn't only the Houston Independent School District that pays teachers for unused time off. The city of Houston does, also. I know of some employees who collected thousands of dollars at retirement in unused sick and vacation time.

No private employer pays for unused sick time. This practice by public entities should be curtailed.

Regarding "11 teammates said Armstrong guilty of doping" (A2, Thursday), people seem to accept the idea that the substances Lance Armstrong is alleged to have used contributed to his performance, but does anyone have any convincing scientific evidence that the use of EPO or testosterone in the levels used by Armstrong's team actually improves biking or other athletic performance? Whether or not they work and if their use is banned, Armstrong and his team should not have used them. But I seriously doubt blood doping works to improve performance and question whether testosterone helps in biking either.

Biking is not weight lifting where steroid use can help build muscle; bikers don't have huge muscles and bulk.

Armstrong's reputation has now been ruined, and I suspect he and his team would have won without the use of these substances, the effects of which, I suspect, we're more psychological than physical.

If steroids were there in large quantities, he would have been caught over the years, and he wasn't. These substances should not be called "performance enhancing" if the data are not there showing they enhance performance.

Regarding "Recycling idea has city doing sorting" (Page A1, Wednesday), the city recycling rate has been stuck at about 15 percent since 2006 when I first served on Houston City Council. We have not moved forward like other big cities, although the technology has improved significantly

Practical solutions to expanding curbside service and building new "single stream" sorting facilities were advanced by City Council, but not acted upon. In partnership with private companies, sorted waste, whether glass, paper, wood chips or metals, can be sold and re-used, as a means of recapturing processing costs.

Let's set a doable recycling goal of 50 percent of our waste stream by 2018. Waste is a terrible thing to waste.